This is, by far, the biggest victory we have had in years against the Bush corruption.  I don't feel let down.  I also think that the investigation will continue, and that much bigger things are coming.

In addition to this investigation, the Wilson civil suit is being filed against BushCo.

This issue effectively cracks the stranglehold BushCo has over the Republican Party.

The one disappointment in this whole thing for me is the (so far) extremely weak response from the Democrats.  I am beginning to believe the radical rhetoric that they are simply in the pockets of big business the same as the Republicans, and that, for any single Senator or Congressman, their sole purpose in Congress or the Senate is to hang on to their jobs any way possible.

Yes, I know that Reid, Kerry, and Pelosi came out with statements, but where is the rest of the gang?  Waiting to fold on the next Supreme Court nomination?

Democrats pounce on indictment
By Brian Knowlton International Herald Tribune

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2005


WASHINGTON Democrats wasted no time Friday in asserting that the indictment of I. Lewis Libby Jr., the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, reflected a recklessness by the Bush administration - perhaps at the very highest level, they suggested - that had endangered the national security.

"These are very serious charges," said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Senate minority leader. "They suggest that a senior White House aide put politics ahead of our national security and the rule of law."

Christopher Wolf, attorney for Joseph Wilson 4th - whose wife, Valerie, is the CIA operative around whom the case is built - read a note from his client that praised the special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, for his "professionalism, for his diligence, for his courage."

The note also said: "Whatever the final outcome of the investigation and the prosecution, I continue to believe that revealing my wife Valerie's secret CIA identity was very wrong and harmful to our nation, and I believe, I feel that my family was attacked for my speaking the truth about the events that led our country to war."

Republicans were slower than Democrats to react.

Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah offered a mixed verdict. While saying that the prosecutor apparently had been "reading something into the statute that I didn't read into the statute," he added: "Knowing Fitzgerald as I do, he's a competent, very, very good professional, and you have to doubt that he would bring charges that he didn't have backup for."

Hatch, a member of the Judiciary Committee, praised Libby as a serious and competent professional, saying, "We'll just have to see what happens."

But Democrats spoke of "corruption."

"There is a level of corruption here that seems to ignore these questions about national security in a very dangerous way," said Senator Byron Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota. "This is an issue that potentially endangers our national security."

While some Republicans, including Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, have suggested that charges of perjury might be seen as trivial - unworthy fruits of a two-year-long investigation - Democrats have sought to give Libby's indictment the broadest interpretation.

"This case is bigger than the leak of highly classified information," said Reid. "It is about how the Bush White House manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to bolster its case for the war in Iraq and to discredit anyone who dared to challenge the president."

Representative John Conyers of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said, "The charges really beg the larger question: What did the president and vice president know about these and related matters, and when did they know it?"

While the president spent much of the day out of town, Democrats were quick to try to link him to the CIA leak scandal.

Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, Bush's rival in the 2004 elections, said the indictment provided "evidence of White House corruption at the very highest levels, far from the 'honor and dignity' the president pledged to restore to Washington just five years ago."

He added: "A chief architect of the war in Iraq, Scooter Libby, sworn to protect this country, used access to national security information not as weapons against our nation's enemies, but as weapons against someone who dared to ask tough questions of a dishonest policy. Then they tried to cover it up."

"Not only was America misled into war, but a Nixonian effort to silence dissent has now left Americans wondering whether they can trust anything this administration has to say."

Even a Republican, Representative Tom Petri of Wisconsin, commented, saying that "as so often happens with Washington scandals, it isn't the original scandal that gets people in the most trouble - it's the attempted cover-up."


http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/28/news/react.php

Democrats pounce on indictment
By Brian Knowlton International Herald Tribune

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2005

I'm not dissappointed.  I'm happy that the beginning of the end of this administration has begun.  I am convinced this is not going to be unspun. And I believe Fitzgerald is not nearly done with Rove or Cheney.

Be happy.

Libby could get 30 years. These are BIG charges There were 5 indictments against him, and maybe there are 5 more coming up for Rove that are already sealed.

Cheney is going to have to testify if there is a trial. He is in deep trouble.

By having Rove hanging like he is, they can't celebrate or do more bad stuff. Rove is now known to be MR. A.
They are on the run.

It probably stopped a new war too if we are lucky

And Boltin may be going down. His name is over everything.

That's because they're so desperate for something to fight the Republicans with. 

I personally thought there would be more indictments.

That's because they're so desperate for something to fight the Republicans with. 

I personally thought there would be more indictments.

Wow, some of you guys are a tough crowd to please. It seems the Dems are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

False on two counts.

1) It's not some monolithic "the Dems" which are being criticized, but the fake-Democratic national " leadership" which by and large has abandoned the core principals of the Democratic Party and become ideologically and morally corrupt.

2)  They are not being damned for "doing"--  they still arn't showing leadership (only followship);  they still are embracing  the whole discredited,  proven-to-fail ideology of  fake-DLC type "centrism".
The newly touted slogan,  "America can do better"  epitomizes this disastrous situation.

We are watching a new soap opera... "As the Screws Turn".

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Scooter's going down, but I would be lying if I said I was happy yesterday with the outcome of this thing. I of course wanted Rove to fall, and even Cheney, who I feel personifies evil. I wanted it badly, too. Now I find myself clinging to the wild hope that Scooter will "flip" as they say on Law & Order, and sing like a canary, bringing everyone down with him. I just wanted to see MANY aides, staffers, helpers, friends, whatever the he**, rounded up in handcuffs and carried off in a paddy-wagon! Coupled with the fact that the Meirs story is now a non-story, I was especially bummed about this far less than satisfactory outcome!    There was such a frenzied build up, only to have some clown named "Scooter" take the fall???  It just isn't enough...  Thanks for letting me rant!

I agree...five indictments is ok by me.
Rove still under investigation keeps the pressure on.

And this Fitzgerald guy? Aces...just solid aces...patience y'all.

So your view is what? What should the Democratic Party be doing that in your opinion they are not doing? What should they have done yesterday that they did not do?

Big things don't happen all at once, now this can't go away, Libby has to decide whether to accept what's effectively a life sentence and even CNN keeps repeating pieces and interviews saying it betrayed our security and our country. Do you think it stops with Libby now that the media are calling the administration traitors?

This is only the beginning this reaches deep ... I think we'll all get a lot more.

Believe Me !!!

(October 29, 2005 -- 03:03 PM EDT)

Anyone have any insight on this graf from 'Libby Charged' article in today's Times?

Mr. Fitzgerald was spotted Friday morning outside the office of James Sharp, Mr. Bush's personal lawyer. Mr. Bush was interviewed about the case by Mr. Fitzgerald last year. It is not known what discussions, if any, were taking place between the prosecutor and Mr. Sharp. Mr. Sharp did not return a phone call, and Mr. Fitzgerald's spokesman, Randall Samborn, declined to comment.

Remember, in his capacity as president, Mr. Bush's lawyer is Harriet Miers, the White House Counsel. This is his personal lawyer. In fact, I believe Sharp was hired particularly for this case.

Thoughts?

-- Josh Marshall

Saturday, October 29, 2005

3 Hours Before the Indictment of Cheney's Chief of Staff, the Special Prosecutor Pays a Mysterious Visit to President Bush's Criminal Defense Attorney

Paragraph Buried in New York Times Story Suggests President Bush Is Now the Target of a Criminal Investigation

From Talking Points Memo.

Things that make you go hmm.

So, let's see here:

1. According to the block-buster New York Daily News story from last week, Rove has the power to blow the President out of the water by telling investigators that Bush knew he (Rove) was the leaker prior to speaking with federal investigators. Meaning--according to an unchallenged major-media news report--Rove can confirm that the President of the United States committed a crime. Indeed, an offense already established by the Republican majority in Congress as impeachable (cf. William Jefferson Clinton).

2. On Wednesday, Rove thought he was about to be indicted on numerous counts of perjury, obstruction, false statement, and leaking classified information. Rove was looking at (like Libby) up to 30 years in a federal prison. Which, for Rove (given his age) would be a life sentence.

3. On Wednesday and Thursday, Rove's attorney, Luskin, engaged in some desperate last-minute negotiations with Fitzgerald, whose substance and content are as yet unknown.

4. On Friday, in a stunner, Rove was not indicted.

5. Also on Friday, Fitzgerald was spotted in the law offices of President Bush's personal criminal defense attorney.

6. On Friday evening, frighteningly-obscure blogger Seth Abramson--not knowing Fact #5--speculates that Rove was not indicted because he has the goods on President Bush and may have become a cooperating individual in the Plamegate investigation.

7. If Fitzgerald had gotten the goods on President Bush on Wednesday or Thursday, courtesy of Rove, the first place he would have gone on Friday morning is: the law offices of President Bush's personal criminal defense attorney.

8. The mainstream media, apart from the New York Times (which buried this news) has reported none of this.

CONCLUSION: A Special Prosecutor from the Department of Justice is currently investigating serious criminal charges against the President of the United States. These criminal charges would substantially mirror the charges which led to the impeachment of the last President of the United States.

Is this really so far-fetched, knowing what we know now?

posted by Seth Abramson @ 1:41 PM

Standing on the rooftops with bullhorns screaming bloody murder -- that is what they should be doing.

Act like an opposition party.  Watch some TV showing how British or Canadian opposition parties act -- that is how the Dems should be doing it.

Standing on the rooftops with bullhorns screaming bloody murder -- that is what they should be doing.

Act like an opposition party.  Watch some TV showing how British or Canadian opposition parties act -- that is how the Dems should be doing it.

For those seeking more, take a gander here. First item is from Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo. Second item is a post from the person who used to run the blog The Nashua Advocate.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/006889.php
http://sethabramson.blogspot.com/2005/10/3...of-cheneys.html

I mentioned patience earlier...maybe it's because I live in
the dirt of the real world. I've been putting in two hours three
days a week digging a huge pine stump (which resulted from
Katrina) with a pick-axe and shovel. I'm about 3/4 of the way.

I also have a large pan of pork ribs marinading. 24 hours before
they are ready to bake, then broil with sauce...they fall apart when
finished (3.5 hours)...make you slap yo momma.

I need not even bring up making love.

My point is: patience is a virtrue in some things.
Especially when it is required. Yes, I'd like to STOP THE WAR,
and indict Rove, Cheney and Bush...but I know it may or may not
happen. So...I'll lace up my boots...and swing that pick-axe until fatigued.
And eventually I'll drag that stump to the fire and turn it to ash.
Just like we will burn this bankrupt administration - in time - keep workin'.

As for the people of these United States, I am ashamed that they are not out protesting and raising some caine.  The other night I attended one of the two candlelight vigils in my area-  only 100 people showed up at our location.  Now that makes me very angry and disappointed.  So unless we are all trying to do something ourselves, then we have no right to complain. 
[/color]

Which NYT story are they referencing?

Cheney Aide Charged With Lying in Leak Case

By DAVID JOHNSTON and RICHARD W. STEVENSON
October 29, 2005

WASHINGTON, Oct. 28 - I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, was indicted by a federal jury on Friday on five felony charges of lying to investigators and misleading the grand jury in the C.I.A. leak case, deepening the air of political crisis afflicting the White House while leaving many questions unanswered.

The indictment charged Mr. Libby with one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of making false statements to F.B.I. investigators and two counts of lying to the grand jury. It presented Mr. Libby as a deceptive witness who lied repeatedly and provided fictitious accounts to the grand jury about his dealings with reporters. But it did not charge him with the actual leaking of a C.I.A. officer's name.

Mr. Libby, one of the highest-ranking and most influential officials in the administration, immediately resigned and left the White House.

He said in a written statement later that he expected to be exonerated. If convicted of all the charges, he faces up to 30 years in prison and fines up to $1.25 million.

At a news conference at the Justice Department, the special counsel in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, said his investigation "is not over," but he declined to say whether he might seek additional indictments.

The developments left unresolved the fate of Karl Rove, President Bush's senior adviser and deputy chief of staff, who had been warned by the prosecutor that he was in serious legal jeopardy but who was not charged in the indictment against Mr. Libby. With the term of his grand jury at an end, Mr. Fitzgerald said he could present any new evidence to an already impaneled grand jury if needed.

Mr. Rove's lawyer, Robert D. Luskin, said in a statement he was confident Mr. Fitzgerald would conclude Mr. Rove had done nothing wrong.

The charges against Mr. Libby and the prosecutor's decision not to indict Mr. Rove riveted Washington, left the White House scrambling to insulate Mr. Bush from further political damage and emboldened Democrats to press their case that the administration had been dishonest with the American people.

But rather than marking the end of the matter after 22 months of an intensive investigation that went to the heart of the White House, the indictment opened a new chapter. Mr. Libby could face a trial that seems likely to expose to the public some of the administration's innermost workings and probably require testimony by Mr. Cheney. And it only highlighted how many elements of the case remained obscured by the secrecy of the legal proceedings.

The 22-page indictment portrayed Mr. Cheney and many of his aides as personally involved in an effort to learn about Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former diplomat who emerged in the spring and early summer of 2003 as a critic of the way the administration used prewar intelligence showing that Saddam Hussein had a nuclear weapons program to justify the invasion of Iraq.

But the indictment did not charge Mr. Libby with the action that set off the prosecution nearly two years ago: the leak of the name of Mr. Wilson's wife, Valerie Wilson, a C.I.A. officer whose identity was publicly disclosed by Robert D. Novak, the syndicated columnist. Mr. Novak cited two senior administration officials as his sources.

Nor did the indictment name Mr. Novak's sources, beyond a reference to an "Official A" at the White House who had spoken to him in the week before Mr. Novak's column on July 14, 2003. That official is believed to be Mr. Rove. According to lawyers in the case, Mr. Rove told the grand jury of a conversation with Mr. Novak in which Mr. Novak mentioned that he had heard that Mr. Wilson's wife worked at the C.I.A. Mr. Rove told the grand jury that he had responded to Mr. Novak by saying he had heard the same thing, the lawyers said.

Mr. Fitzgerald was spotted Friday morning outside the office of James Sharp, Mr. Bush's personal lawyer. Mr. Bush was interviewed about the case by Mr. Fitzgerald last year. It is not known what discussions, if any, were taking place between the prosecutor and Mr. Sharp. Mr. Sharp did not return a phone call, and Mr. Fitzgerald's spokesman, Randall Samborn, declined to comment.

At his news conference, Mr. Fitzgerald did not explain his reasons for taking no action against Mr. Rove, even though the prosecutor had advised him that he might be indicted and had continued interviewing witnesses and reviewing evidence as recently as midweek.

Lawyers in the case said Mr. Fitzgerald had misgivings about whether he could prove that Mr. Rove had deliberately sought to mislead investigators about his conversation with a reporter. Allies of Mr. Bush said the expectation within the White House was that Mr. Rove would not be charged although he had received no official word of being cleared.

Hours after the indictment was filed and made public at the Federal District Court in Washington, Mr. Bush appeared on the South Lawn of the White House to praise Mr. Libby for working "tirelessly on behalf of the American people" and to say that while he and his administration were "saddened" by the news, they would "remain wholly focused on the many issues and opportunities facing this country."

Mr. Cheney, who was in Georgia, issued a statement calling Mr. Libby "one of the most capable and talented individuals I have ever known."

According to the indictment, Mr. Cheney's office was portrayed as the hub of a concerted effort to gather information about Mr. Wilson. The indictment said that Mr. Cheney told Mr. Libby several weeks before the Novak column ran that Mr. Wilson's wife worked in the CIA's counterproliferation division, part of the intelligence agency's clandestine wing. That assertion by the prosecutor suggested that Mr. Cheney would be a likely witness in the trial and raised questions about the vice president's degree of involvement in dealing with Mr. Wilson and his criticisms.

Mr. Cheney's office declined to comment on whether the vice president would agree to testify, referring questions on the issue to Mr. Cheney's personal lawyer, Terrence O'Donnell. Mr. O'Donnell did not return a telephone call.

Mr. Libby's case has been assigned to Judge Reggie B. Walton of Federal District Court in Washington. No date has been set for the arraignment or the start of a trial.

Mr. Libby's lawyer, Joseph A. Tate, said in statement that Mr. Libby was innocent and that his case would be "vigorously" defended. The lawyer said Mr. Libby had cooperated with the prosecutor and had testified "to the best of his honest recollection on all occasions."

Mr. Tate said Mr. Libby had produced many documents and had signed waivers to allow reporters to testify about their confidential conversations with him.

"We are quite distressed that the special counsel has now sought to pursue alleged inconsistencies in Mr. Libby's recollections and those of others and to charge such inconsistencies as false statements," Mr. Tate said.

The indictment etched a starkly different portrait of an official who repeatedly deceived authorities about his actions. It accused Mr. Libby of one overall count of obstruction of justice for misleading the grand jury about the circumstances under which he learned about Ms. Wilson's work at the C.I.A. and about his conversations with journalists.

The indictment charged Mr. Libby with two counts of making false statements on each of the two occasions in which he was interviewed by F.B.I. agents in October and November 2003. In addition, the indictment charged him with two counts of perjury for lying in two appearances before the grand jury in March 2004.

"We brought those cases because we realized that the truth is the engine of our judicial system," Mr. Fitzgerald said, adding later, "We didn't get the straight story, and we had to - had to - act."

Moreover, as Mr. Libby was telling the grand jury that he heard about Ms. Wilson from reporters, the indictment said, prosecutors were compiling evidence that it was Mr. Libby who passed on information to two reporters, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine and Judith Miller of The New York Times. Mr. Cooper and Ms. Miller declined to comment.

In contrast to Mr. Libby's testimony to the grand jury that he learned of Ms. Wilson from journalists, the indictment presented evidence that showed Mr. Libby engaged in an effort - which began earlier and was more aggressive and broader than was previously known - to collect information about Mr. Wilson from the State Department and the C.I.A.

It was this effort, not his conversations with reporters, that allegedly led Mr. Libby to learn that Mr. Wilson was married to a C.I.A. employee and to the information that she may have had a role in sending her husband to Africa. The indictment alleged that:

¶On May 29, 2003, Mr. Libby asked an undersecretary of state, believed to be Marc Grossman, the under secretary for political affairs, for information about Mr. Wilson's 2002 trip to Niger - although at that time Mr. Libby did not know Mr. Wilson's name. In response, Mr. Grossman provided Mr. Libby with oral reports that identified Mr. Wilson and directed the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the State Department to prepare a written report.

¶On June 9, 2003, a number of classified documents were faxed from the C.I.A. to the vice president's office, addressed to the attention of Mr. Libby and another unidentified official. The documents discussed Mr. Wilson and his trip, but did not mention him by name.

¶June 11, Mr. Libby was told by Mr. Grossman that Mr. Wilson's wife worked for the C.I.A. and that State Department officials were saying that she was involved in sending him on the trip.

¶On June 11, 2003, Mr. Libby was told by an unidentified senior C.I.A. officer that Ms. Wilson was employed at the C.I.A. and was behind Mr. Wilson's trip to Africa.

¶On June 12, 2003, Mr. Libby was told by Mr. Cheney that Ms. Wilson worked in the C.I.A. counterproliferation division, most of whose employees work under covert or classified status. Mr. Cheney's information was understood to have come from the C.I.A. Lawyers involved in the case have said that Mr. Libby's notes of the meeting indicated that Mr. Cheney's information came from George J. Tenet, then the direction of central intelligence. Mr. Tenet has declined to comment.

On June 23, 2003, the indictment said, Mr. Libby met with Ms. Miller and told her that Mr. Wilson's wife might work at a bureau of the C.I.A.

Mr. Wilson went public with his criticism of the administration on July 6, 2003, when he published an Op-Ed article in The New York Times in which he said that he went to Africa at the request of the C.I.A. after the vice president's office raised questions about an intelligence report about a possible effort by Iraq to buy uranium ore from Niger. Mr. Wilson concluded such a deal was "highly doubtful."

In the days that followed, Mr. Libby took several crucial steps, according to the indictment. On July 7, 2003, he had lunch with Ari Fleischer, the White House press secretary, telling him that Ms. Wilson worked at the C.I.A. and that the information was not widely known. Mr. Fleischer's lawyer, Robert Barnett, said he would not comment because he could be called as a witness in the case.

Later, Mr. Libby began a series of meetings with reporters. He met with Ms. Miller of The Times again on July 8, 2003, and told her "of his belief that Wilson's wife worked at the C.I.A.," the indictment said. On July 10, 2003, he spoke with Tim Russert, NBC's Washington bureau chief, to complain about a news report he had seen, but the Wilsons, according to the indictment, did not come up.

But Mr. Libby told F.B.I. agents and the grand jury a much different account that the indictment said was false.

In one grand jury appearance, according to the indictment, Mr. Libby said, "Mr. Russert said to me, 'Did you know that Ambassador Wilson's wife, or his wife, works at the C.I.A.?' And I said, 'No, I don't know that.' And then he said, 'Yeah all the reporters know it.' And I said again, 'I don't know that.' "

-------
Eric Lichtblau, John Files, Holli Chmela and Douglas Jehl contributed reporting for this article.

We literally raise cane (sugarcane) down here.
It takes time, you've gotta work hard.
But after ya harvest you burn the residue.
The whole field goes up in flames...and the
ground is renewed. The cane can make
sugar, syrup or rum...take your choice.

We will fire the field...we will.

This one:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/29/politics...?pagewanted=all

Thanks Rox.  The NYT has written so many good stories here lately that I didn't want to have to go through all of them to find it.

For those seeking more, take a gander here. First item is from Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo. Second item is a post from the person who used to run the blog The Nashua Advocate.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/006889.php
http://sethabramson.blogspot.com/2005/10/3...of-cheneys.html

Good related post on FireDogLake. I'm not going to put the text here, because I'm feeling too lazy to edit out the cuss words. But it's worth reading. It talks somewhat about how Fitz has put the squeeze on people he's indicted in other cases, and how they eventually rat out the big fish, rather than face spending the rest of their lives in prison.

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2005/10/pa...radler-and.html

Or for those who prefer to copy and paste the link instead of clicking on it, use this:
firedoglake.blogspot.com/2005/10/patrick-fitzgerald-david-radler-and.html

Good related post on FireDogLake. I'm not going to put the text here, because I'm feeling too lazy to edit out the cuss words. But it's worth reading. It talks somewhat about how Fitz has put the squeeze on people he's indicted in other cases, and how they eventually rat out the big fish, rather than face spending the rest of their lives in prison.

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2005/10/pa...radler-and.html

Or for those who prefer to copy and paste the link instead of clicking on it, use this:
firedoglake.blogspot.com/2005/10/patrick-fitzgerald-david-radler-and.html

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nati...akcheney29.html
3 Hours Before the Indictment of Cheney's Chief of Staff, the Special Prosecutor Pays a Mysterious Visit to President Bush's Criminal Defense Attorney

Paragraph Buried in New York Times Story Suggests President Bush Is Now the Target of a Criminal Investigation

From Talking Points Memo.

Things that make you go hmm.

So, let's see here:

1. According to the block-buster New York Daily News story from last week, Rove has the power to blow the President out of the water by telling investigators that Bush knew he (Rove) was the leaker prior to speaking with federal investigators. Meaning--according to an unchallenged major-media news report--Rove can confirm that the President of the United States committed two crimes: obstruction of justice and making false statements to federal investigators. Indeed, these two offenses have already been effectively established by the Republican majority in Congress as impeachable offenses (cf. William Jefferson Clinton).

2. On Wednesday, Rove thought he was about to be indicted on numerous counts of perjury, obstruction, false statement, and leaking classified information. Rove was looking at (like Libby) up to 30 years in a federal prison. Which, for Rove (given his age) would be a life sentence. Sure, he'd be unlikely to do anything like that much time, but everyone involved in the Plamegate investigation seems to be talking like these are eminently jailable offenses--even for those (like Rove and Libby) with no prior criminal record.

3. On Wednesday and Thursday, Rove's attorney, Luskin, engaged in some desperate last-minute negotiations with Fitzgerald, whose substance and content are as yet unknown.

4. On Friday, in a stunner, Rove was not indicted. No one, including Fitzgerald, is willing or able to adequately explain why.

5. Also on Friday, Fitzgerald was spotted in the law offices of President Bush's personal criminal defense attorney.

6. If Fitzgerald had gotten the goods on President Bush on Wednesday or Thursday, courtesy of Rove--and thereby saving Rove, for the moment, a Friday indictment--the first place he would have gone on Friday morning is: the law offices of President Bush's personal criminal defense attorney.

7. The mainstream media, apart from the New York Times (which buried this news in its Saturday article) has reported none of this.

CONCLUSION: A Special Prosecutor from the Department of Justice is currently investigating serious criminal charges against the President of the United States. These criminal charges would substantially mirror the charges which led to the impeachment of the last President of the United States.

Is this really so far-fetched, knowing what we know now?

Or, better yet, I'll put it this way: is there a more plausible scenario anyone can provide for why the Special Prosecutor would be in Attorney Sharp's offices on Friday morning, when Bush's only interview with Plamegate investigators now lies more than a year in the past--and Fitzgerald has no reason on earth to (as I'm sure someone somewhere will claim) tell Sharp in person that Bush is not a target? No: he would have done that by letter; that doesn't require an in-person visit.

Maybe it's just the criminal defense attorney in me talking.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Scooter's going down, but I would be lying if I said I was happy yesterday with the outcome of this thing. I of course wanted Rove to fall, and even Cheney, who I feel personifies evil. I wanted it badly, too. Now I find myself clinging to the wild hope that Scooter will "flip" as they say on Law & Order, and sing like a canary, bringing everyone down with him. I just wanted to see MANY aides, staffers, helpers, friends, whatever the he**, rounded up in handcuffs and carried off in a paddy-wagon! Coupled with the fact that the Meirs story is now a non-story, I was especially bummed about this far less than satisfactory outcome!    There was such a frenzied build up, only to have some clown named "Scooter" take the fall???  It just isn't enough...  Thanks for letting me rant!

Standing on the rooftops with bullhorns screaming bloody murder -- that is what they should be doing.

Act like an opposition party.  Watch some TV showing how British or Canadian opposition parties act -- that is how the Dems should be doing it.